Deutsche Bank scraps 2011 profit target

Euronews

Blaming Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, Deutsche Bank has said it will not make its target of 10 billion euros in profit before tax this year.

“The intensifying European sovereign debt crisis led to sustained uncertainties among market participants in the third quarter and thus to significantly reduced volumes and revenues,” Chief Executive Josef Ackermann said in a statement.

The bank did not give a revised figure for full-year profit.

Germany’s biggest lender said it will lose about 250 million euros on money it has lent to Greece in the third quarter of this year.

It also announced it will move to cut costs further and plans to lay off around 500 people, mainly outside Germany.

Ackermann said Deutsche Bank had boosted its liquidity buffers to more than 180 billion euros from 150 billion previously and did not face a funding squeeze.

“Deutsche Bank had absolutely no refinancing problems, neither in 2008 nor in 2011,” he said at a financial conference.

Analysts had expected lower earnings after the bank’s finance chief Stefan Krause said last month that its profit target hinged on a recovery in European capital markets.